Bethesda news, restaurants, nightlife, events and openings, real estate, crime reports and more - the way only a lifelong Bethesda resident like Robert Dyer can bring it to you. Everything you want and need to know about Bethesda, plus special investigative reports you won't find anywhere else. The must-read blog for breaking Bethesda news, when you want to be the first to know.

Saturday, November 07, 2015

Kraze Burgers loses name at Westfield Montgomery Mall (Photos)

Kraze Burgers now has a less crazy name in the Westfield Montgomery Mall Dining Terrace. It is now going under the anodyne moniker of Burger Venue.

Same menu, same ingredients, but no Kraze Burger branding. Virtually all of the Kraze Burgers restaurants in the area seem to have closed - does anyone know if there are still any open?

So the good news is, if you like Kraze Burgers, you can still enjoy it at Westfield Montgomery Mall.

I guess it's time to report on my visit to Soup Up. It was worse than I expected. The parking garage across the street was full on a weekday at lunchtime, but I managed to find a street space. The interior of the place is very noisy due to the acoustics. That would be fine if this were a fast casual place, but they have table service.

We were there for about 45 minutes, because it took a while to get our soup, despite it sitting in large pots about 20 feet away from us. During the time we were there (weekday lunchtime), about 5 more customers came in, and 2 of those were customers who bought take-out and were returning it. One said the soup was cold, and another person said the chili was too spicy.

The menu had limited selection, and they ran out of one soup, and two types of their breads. The breads we did receive were warm on the outside and ice cold on the inside.

The soup had the "twigs" from the herbs still in there (you're supposed to remove these before serving), which I see was also a complaint in a Yelp review so it's not a one-time occurrence.

The soups were bland, and lacking imagination. My friend had the mushroom soups and all the mushrooms were pureed so it had not texture. My chicken soup was $11 for a medium and I was hungry an hour later.

I feel bad being so critical of a small business, but it's probably the worst dining experience I've ever had in Bethesda.

Now, here's how they can fix it, since I'd like them to succeed:

- Drop table service. Let everyone order at the front counter and call their number when it's ready.- Include a slice of bread with the soup- Lower all soup prices by $2- Offer a wider variety of soups, especially popular soups like french onion, tom yum, gumbo, clam chowder, and some kind of fancy ramen. People know those and like them, so you'll get repeat customers if you can do those well.

I think the place is trying to focus too much on offering vegan and dairy-free soups, as the majority of soups on the menu fit into this category. They need to realize that's too much of a nice and need to widen their offerings to attract the lunch crowd.

I can't see them doing that well at dinner time. Can you imagine taking someone on a date for soup? Hey, big spender!

Thanks, for the update. I'll have to check it out. I don't know what Yelp(s) you were looking at, but I've seen nothing but positive reviews, except for an issue with the spring rolls, and I've been checking. So another view is appreciated.

I'm a hot soup person. Could have it twice a day, every day. My friends rave about them, but it's the DC one. It's a narrow concept in a bad location, they'll have to be spectacular to survive.

Said here and elsewhere that this place, for many reasons, is dead on arrival. Doesn't sound appealing at all. But even if it were the greatest soup of all time, it's still an uphill climb. You have visibility issues, parking, price seemingly too high you name it. They are also a little bit away from serious office worker traffic walking to lunch. Lastly, how much soup do they expect to sell after 5pm and all weekend? You have to sell hundreds of bowls a day not a week just in order to make it in a highly pricey real estate market. They just can't do that I don't think.